Dan Butler, Sean Gormley, Johnny Hopkins, and Sarah Street Photo by Carol Rosegg

They love it more than I do. The Weir, set in a cozy, frowsy pub somewhere around Sligo, is an evening of storytelling, a few seasoned familiars piling up the pints of stout and "small ones" (whiskeys) as they recount well-worn tales for the entertainment of a new local, one who has her own tale to tell. The stories each contain an element of the supernatural, a trace of the otherworldly and inexplicable, until the newbie's, which is undoubtedly true, yet also veers off into a possible call from the beyond. Moore and O'Reilly again: "Are these forces real or imagined? We'll let you decide." Either way, The Weir is rich in Hibernian lilt and the good fellowship of old friends sitting around a bar, yet it's also curiously static, sort of an Iceman Cometh or The Time of Your Life where little is said of actual consequence.

But, let's add, this latest Weir (a weir is a hydroelectric dam; apparently there's one nearby, though we hear little about it) is beautifully done. Charlie Corcoran's set–with a few stools and tables, a fireplace-stove, lit signs advertising Killian's and Bacardi, and a wall of old photos–is so inviting, you'll want to hop up there and order a Guinness. Only the Guinness tap isn't working, so Jack (Dan Butler), an auto mechanic, helps himself to a bottle. Jack's an amiable blowhard, one of the most popular fellows in town and he knows it, given to florid gesticulations and more florid descriptions. Brendan (Johnny Hopkins), the bartender-owner, suffers them patiently, often retreating into passivity as the other regulars enter.

These include Jim (John Keating–so many Irish Rep regulars in this cast!), Jack's assistant and a bit of a dim bulb, caring for his aging ma as he soaks up the pints and grins at the banter, and Finbar (Sean Gormley), a successful businessman who's going to cause a stir tonight: He's bringing along Valerie (Sarah Street), younger and more attractive than any of them, who's just moved in from Dublin. Offered a quaff, she asks for a white wine, which amounts in these environs to speaking in a foreign tongue. Brendan immediately suspects ulterior motives on Finbar's part; he's wrong. Finbar just wants Valerie to dip a toe in the local atmosphere, accustom herself to the gentle humor, fond insults, and passion for storytelling that permeate this nameless pub.

And the stories quickly accumulate. The accents take some getting used to, and you might need the first 10 minutes or so for that, but once the tale-spinning begins, you'll be acclimated. Jack's deals with the house Valerie just moved into, on a "fairy road" where sprites may or may not have knocked on the door. Finbar's is about a neighbor and a Ouija board, one that may have conjured an animal spirit. Then Valerie's, and here one wonders if McPherson didn't miscalculate. It's tragic, very personal, and though it does lead to a possible paranormal encounter, one wonders if this guarded young lady would so willingly share it with a roomful of roistering rakes she scarcely knows. It's a difficult monologue, and Street plays it with great finesse, withholding and releasing large emotions at just the right intervals. Jack has one tale to tell after that, a sad, personal, non-paranormal one about a doomed romance decades back, and Butler nails it.

The whole cast, in fact, is flawless, from Butler's bantam strut and cocky confidence masking a painful self-doubt to Keating's reticence to Gormley's patrician reserve. As Brendan, a role with fewer opportunities, Hopkins gains laughs with a gesture, a fleeting expression, the way he leans back and lets the customers spin out tales he's probably heard dozens of times before. The production, too, hasn't a fault. Leon Dobkowski's costumes are exactly as McPherson describes them in the script; Michael Gottlieb's lighting captures the low-intensity gleam of a past-its-prime pub, illuminating the cigarette smoke, of which there's a lot; and Drew Levy's sound design, consisting mainly of a fierce west wind, allows these stage-trained actors to be heard clearly and naturally without electronic meddling.

"This has been a strange little evening," Jack eventually opines, and he got that right. It's about as fine a Weir as you'll ever see, rather like, well, spending 100 minutes in a rural pub with some engaging strangers trying to outdo one another in flights of lyrical fancy. And O'Reilly paces it expertly, down to the last pause indicated in the script (there are hundreds). Yet McPherson, for all his gifts of stringing blarney together, hasn't given us a great deal to hang onto. They're likable characters, they tell beguiling spooky little yarns. But what large truths are being revealed, what is there beyond a pleasant slice-of-life nod to the traditions of Irish storytelling? In those elements, it lacks weirwithal.